Tom Boellstoff (2012) stated in his book on digital anthropology that this is not a borderless digital concept, it opens a door to a more powerful conceptual framework for understanding the constant common forms an exponential relationship between virtual and real. Digital anthropology is actually an anthropological development. Ethnography is considered a method of practical research, which invites researchers to use various methods (video, text, interviews, etc.) to live and research in digital, physical and sensory environments. The Digital Ethnographic Society often has indirect contact with participants, instead of being directly present. We may digitally track the behavior of others, or they invite us to join their social media activities to observe their behavior (Pink, 2016).
When digital anthropology is used as a research method, it pays more attention to the whole research process and the involvement of researchers. Therefore, the advantages and disadvantages of digital anthropology are very obvious exposed.
1. The method of “participation in observation” is the most commonly used method in digital ethnography or ethnography. It provides ethnologists with insights into the development of practice and meaning, and enables researchers to identify cultural practices and beliefs that are not understood in research design. The most rare is that this method can get more true and accurate answers than official responses (Boellstoff, 2012). In contrast, the observation method takes a long time because researchers cannot integrate into a community in a short time (Rosaldo 1989, p.25 in Tonkiss, 2012, p.55). Obviously, for some surveys that are eager to know the results, this method is difficult to use.
2. The results of ethnographic or digital ethnographic research usually appear in the form of essays or articles, but whether they are interviewed alone or participated in observation they face the same problem-subjectivity and objectivity. Because when using digital anthropology as a research method, investigators often choose to combine blogs and other text analysis for “ethnographic research” (Boellstoff, 2012) while conducting interviews and observations. But in this process, researchers usually don’t know which cultural customs they will observe in their research, and there will be great risks and uncertainties in the process of network recording. Therefore, many times ethnographic research is separate from the researchers themselves.
3. Even so, on the one hand, one of the biggest advantages of ethnographic methods is that Boellstoff (2012) believes that researchers can apply them to specific field environments at specific time periods, which is very convenient in research. On the other hand, since the use of ethnographic methods usually involves re-editing and demonstrating materials and combining analysis with participants’ observation diaries, such a process of repeated confirmation and discussion is sufficient to prove that this is a very scientific And rigorous research methods.
Interestingly, ethnography and visual analysis can be complementary in some ways. First, from the comparison of the understanding of visual analysis provided by Roland Barthes (1981), in addition to the subjective understanding of the work by photographers or creators, it is difficult to ensure that everyone can fully understand the work. And the rigor of ethnography can just make up for this shortcoming. Secondly, Visual analysis can quickly analyze the content of hundreds of photos and give judgments in a short period of time, which also contrasts with the shortcomings of wasting time in ethnography.
Generally, ethnography is a very effective and difficult research method, but as long as it can be used well, it will bring unexpected results to many researches.
Reference:
Barthes, R. (1981). Camera Lucida. New York: Hill and Wang.
Boellstoff, T. (2012). Rethinking Digital Anthropology (pp.39-60). In H.A. Horst and D. Miller (eds.) Digital Anthropology. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Pink, S. (2016). Digital ethnography. London: Sage.
MCS923 Group 5 